Vengeance Trail

by Bill Brooks

  The thick rumble of thunder rolled overhead, the air crashed with violence and slashed by electricity, and he was reminded of the sound and fury of war.

  Working his way along the ground, he retreated back to where the buckskin was growing desperate, fighting against the hobbles. More lightening bolts, but this time, no faces appeared among the trees. Where were they?

  He reached the buckskin just as the first drops of rain began to fall. Stroking the animal’s neck, he managed to drop a rope over its head and tied the other end off to a fallen log.

  The rain increased in intensity, knocking down the brim of his hat and soaking his skin. He found the saddle that lay by the bedroll and pulled the Winchester.

  The seconds of waiting seemed eternal, but then, through the heavy pour of rain, he heard only what a man who lived by his wits would have heard: the snap of a twig not more than thirty feet away.

  He fired blindly toward the sound. Someone cried out in pain. He immediately rolled several paces toward his left just as a flash of rifle fire sent a bullet whizzing past where he had been crouched.

  He had counted three faces by the cottonwoods, but he knew there could be more. He figured them to be road agents.

  He aimed the Winchester at the spot where he had seen the muzzle flash even though there was little chance the shooter would have held his position.

  Most men were right handed. If a man shot and then rolled away from his position, he most generally rolled to his right.

  Henry swung the barrel of the rifle a few inches to the left of the spot of muzzle flash. Before he could squeeze the trigger a second shot banged into the dark. The flash of light directly at the point he had been aiming.

  He squeezed the trigger immediately, too quickly for the shooter to move away. Something thudded to the ground.

  “Little Ray, you get that sumabitch?” he heard a voice call out from somewhere to the rear of his position. Henry turned, laid the rifle down and drew his revolver. The voice was close.

  “Kid, I am shot through the guts…the bastard shot me through the guts…blow his head off, Kid!”

  Henry fanned the hammer of the Remington, the pistol banged six times. He could hear the Kid grunt and then, only the splattering of the rain sounded.

  The Ranger quickly ejected the shells from his revolver and reloaded. The wait seemed endless. The rain fell in hissing torrents, battered his hat, soaked his clothes, and he waited.

  Waited like he had known Apaches to wait, silent and stock still.

  The storm was marching away in the distant and eventually, the rain stopped altogether. Every muscle in his body was cramped from the damp coldness of night, but still he waited.

  After the darkest hour, came the first light of dawn. It crept over the land, pushing back the shaggy shadows as it came. And when the light became enough, he saw, directly in front of him, not twenty yards distance, the body of a man. Sweeping his gaze in a wide circle, he saw another man slumped by one of the cottonwoods.

  The third man was missing.

  With caution he got to his feet, the cramped muscles unwilling to let him move too fast. He moved to the nearest body, examined the face, saw the homely but youthful features frozen in a mask of pain.

  Moving to the man slumped near the tree, he felt a strange foreboding as he drew near. There seemed something familiar about the man, something about the clothes, the hat. When he tipped the man back to look at his face, he then knew what it was that had given him that dark feeling: Dead as dust from a shot through the neck that had bled him to death was Clave Miller.

  “Damn,” he muttered. In spite of the troubling revelation, the business at hand was unfinished. There was yet another gunman to be found.

  Upon further inspection of the killing ground, he found a blood trail leading through the tall grass that flanked the stream. Checking the loads in his weapons, he followed it.

  A half hour of trailing the blood smears brought him to the edge of where the bank dropped away several feet to the water. He saw the fresh tracks of boot heels in the soft ground leading down the bank and along the shoreline and curving out of sight around a bend.

  He worked his way carefully down the bank and moved cautiously as he followed the trail. Just where the bank curved, he laid the Winchester down and drew his pistol. At close range, he preferred a pistol.

  Stepping around the curve of the bank, he found what he was looking for.

  The wounded man turned his head at the sound, saw the big man coming toward him, saw the revolver in the man’s hand.

  He closed his eyes and clutched at a place just above his belt buckle—a place that was sticky with blood. He saw the big man coming and closed his eyes and swallowed hard several times.

  Henry Dollar saw that it was just another boy, like the first one, not much older than twenty and with the same familiar homely features as the first—he figured them to be brothers.

  The kid was gut shot, his skin gone to gray from loss of blood. Henry had seen a lot of men in his time that had been gut shot and instantly he felt sorry for the boy, for the terrible agony such a wound can cause.

  The boy’s eyes fluttered open, came to rest on the large man standing over him. They were frightened, nervous eyes, eyes that spilled tears down the sides of his dirty cheeks.

  The wound was bubbling blood between his fingers.

  Henry slid his pistol into its holster. The boy was no threat and never would be again.

  “It wasn’t nothin’ personal against you…mister,” he said through gritted teeth. “Clave…he said…he said you was nosing around about the cattle rustling…said he wasn’t going to be arrested for taking what he was entitled to take. . . said….”

  “Save your breath, boy. I know why you come. What’d he pay you to help ambush me?”

  “Hun…hundred dollars, each. Me and Little Ray. Is little Ray…dead?”

  “He is. So is Clave Miller. Cold as ducks, and you’re about to be. I guess you paid a dear price for one hundred dollars.”

  The boy coughed and cried out in pain.

  “You want to make peace with the man upstairs, I’ll give you some privacy. If you want, I’ll carry a message to your kin or loved ones. I’ll write it down and see that it gets to them sooner or later.”

  The boy wept. Henry rolled a cigarette and said, “Do you smoke, son?” And when he nodded that he did, the lawman put the cigarette to his lips and let him smoke it.

  For a time, the boy seemed peaceful, absent of pain and fright. Henry knew that death was near.

  “I ain’t hardly lived at all,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I ain’t never had a chance to be with a girl…won’t never have no kids of my own. I ain’t never even been out of Texas, mister.”

  Henry kneeled by the edge of the water, took his bandanna and dipped it in the stream. He laid it across the boy’s brow.

  “Any message you want me to carry to your kin?” asked Henry, knowing that the young man’s time was drawing near.

  “I have a ma over in Paris Flats…her name is Emilia Bright…if you wouldn’t mind…tell her that her boys, Sandy and Little Ray was killed in a stampede…I don’t think she’d mind the lie…”

  “I’ll tell her son. You just lie back and rest now. I’ll track on back and get a canteen of water and a blanket to ease your suffering.”

  “Mister…I don’t know no prayers…Maybe you could say one for me?” Tears streamed the boy’s face.

  The request was a difficult one. But, looking at the sad and pitiful face of the dying boy, it seemed one that could not be refused.

  Henry removed his Stetson and held it to his side and cast his eyes to the blue peaceful sky.

  “Lord, I’m not the one that should be representing this boy’s case, but right now, I’m all he’s got. It seems to me that he is paying for the error of his ways and he’s been given about all he can handle. I don’t think anyone would find it wrong to ask your forgiveness and ask that he be taken into your heavenly
home. Amen.”

  The youth coughed once, caught his breath, looked up at the lawman and smiled.

  “Mister?”

  “What is it, son?”

  “Could…could you stay with me until…until it’s over?”

  The lawman nodded.

  “Sure. I won’t go anywhere until it’s over.”

  It was not a long vigil.

  Afterwards, he closed the kid’s eyes and folded his arms across his chest and rode away. There was no time to return and tell Josie what had happened. Instead, he stopped at the next ranch, owned by a fellow name of McTeal. He told the man the story, asked him to bury the men and to take word to Josie Miller that her husband was dead. Killed by a Texas Ranger. If things worked out right, he would return some day and explain it to her. But right now, he had no time.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The whistling wind cut across the plains sweeping sagebrush and sand before it. The stalking darkness found the trio camped within the old buffalo wallow.

  Pete Winter could feel his strength oozing away from the hastily dressed shoulder wound. He fought the desire to close his eyes and slip into a painless sleep, knowing that was exactly what Johnny Montana was hoping that he would do. To lose consciousness would mean losing his prisoner, and more likely his life.

  As soon as the Comanches had fled, he ordered the outlaw to replace the manacles on his wrists and ankles. Now he sat holding the pistol in his left hand in order to keep guard over the prisoner, a guard he knew he could not maintain for long.

  “I need your help, Miss Swensen,” he said against the rising sense of dread that was beginning to overtake him.

  “You help him out, Kate, and it’s the same as you putting a rope around our necks—both our necks. Leave him be. There’s not a thing he can do. Soon’s he goes under, we’ll take that trick horse of his and ride away. We’ll be free!”

  She looked from one man to the other; from the dark smoldering eyes of Johnny Montana to the narrow, pain-filled eyes of the Ranger.

  “What is it you want me to do?” she asked, knowing that it she did nothing, they would be free, her and Johnny. But she knew that she no longer wanted to be with the outlaw, no longer wanted to be on the run and fearful of being tracked down.

  “Don’t do it, Katie, I’m warning you! Ain’t nothing going to save that boy if you don’t help. Let it be!”

  “No, Johnny! I’m through listening to you. I won’t be party to letting him die!”

  “You are a damn disappointment, girl!”

  “What do you want me to do?” she asked the lawman.

  “I need you to take my knife and cut some of those yucca stalks and help me build a fire, I need to try and cauterize this wound. I’ve lost about all the blood I can afford to.”

  She reached for the knife, when she did, Johnny Montana scrambled to his feet in spite of being manacled. His face was flushed with anger, his mouth full of curses for her.

  His surge was stopped cold by the sound of the hammer being cocked on the Colt that rested in the lawman’s left hand.

  “You hold your water, mister, or I’ll see that you are tried, convicted and sentenced right here and now!”

  “You don’t have the heart for it, boy!”

  The shot exploded dirt between the toes of the outlaw.

  “That’s where you’re wrong again, mister. That’s where you are dead wrong! The next one goes through your brisket. Now burrow your butt back down in the dirt and stay there!”

  Within a few minutes, Katie had cut several stalks, broken them in two, and struck several kitchen matches before the fire took hold.

  “Now I need you to help me uncrimp some of these shells,” he said, holding forth a handful of bullets. “I need the gunpowder from them.”

  Using his knife, they managed to dig the lead out of the bullets and pour the gunpowder into a tin cup. The effort was tedious and each movement caused the young Ranger to wince in pain.

  The outlaw, sitting in the shadows, watched and waited, sure that his time would come soon.

  Finally, there seemed enough gunpowder in the cup to satisfy the lawman.

  “Now, Katie, I want you to sprinkle that powder over the wound in my shoulder.” She did as he asked, carefully making sure that she did not spill any.

  When she finished, Pete Winter took her by the wrist.

  “What I want you to do now is to take one of those burning stalks out of the fire and put it to this gunpowder. Keep yourself back from it as much as you can, protect your eyes, it’ll flare up hot and quick.”

  She looked at him with an unwavering gaze.

  “I’m hoping it will cauterize the wound and stop the bleeding. If not, I won’t last the night. I’ll most likely go under from pain when you light it. If I do, you’re the only thing that stands between me and him,” he said, nodding toward the outlaw.

  “You know what his intentions are. Do you know how to use a pistol?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never had the need to fire one.”

  “It’s easy,” he told her, handing over the Colt. “You just point it like you would your finger, thumb back the hammer, and squeeze the trigger.”

  “I…couldn’t shoot Johnny,” she whispered, her eyes imploring him.

  “No, I guess you couldn’t,” he said, leaning back against the saddle of one of the dead horses.

  “But I guess if you can’t find it within you to do so, you’ll have to watch him kill me…”

  She saw the eyes of the Ranger flutter white, saw his head fall to his chest, saw him struggle to regain consciousness.

  “It’s time,” he said. “I can’t hold out any longer. Do it now!”

  She reached into the fire and pulled out a burning stalk, hesitated for an instant and then touched its flame to the gunpowder on the wound. A whoomp of flashing white light burned into the night, into the wound, and she heard him moan once and slump over. She quickly poured water from one of the canteens onto the bloody dressing she had removed earlier and packed it against the cauterized wound.

  She heard the rattle of Johnny Montana’s chains, heard him scuttle to his feet.

  “It’s all over now!” he said.

  She turned quickly to face him, the heavy weight of the pistol in her hand reminding her of the lawman’s warning.

  “Don’t,” she said, raising up the Colt with both hands.

  He paused for an instant, there in the light of the fire, his features knotted in anger.

  “Girl, what has got onto your mind? Don’t you see unless we take our chance now, we’ll both be swinging from a hangman’s rope in a few more days? Have you gone daft?”

  “I won’t let you hurt him, Johnny. You’ve hurt enough people and I didn’t do anything to stop you. But I’m going to stop you from hurting him.”

  “Don’t let your heart get in the way of your head, woman. Hell, you fancy that boy, that’s fine with me. But, I ain’t going to let you or him bring me to a hanging.”

  She thumbed back the hammer of the Colt and the sound it made caused the outlaw to catch his breath.

  “Whoa up, gal. Easy with that piece, it’s liable to go off and blow a hole in ol’ Johnny.”

  “Then get back before it does!” she ordered. The effect was visible as she saw him back away from the fire a step.

  “You’d actually do it, pull the trigger on ol’ Johnny,” he said with astonishment. “I’ll be damned if I can believe that.”

  “I’ll do what I have to,” she said. “If you get shot, it’ll be because you want to as far as I’m concerned. You have a choice.”

  An uneasy silence settled between them.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “You let me get these chains off and have that horse, and I’ll clear out—I’ll be gone like the wind.”

  “Why would I do that?” she asked. “If I let you take the horse, we’d be stranded out here in the middle of nowhere. We might as well be dead.”

  “I’ll ride to the nearest se
ttlement and send help back for you. How will that be?”

  “You’ll more likely ride to the nearest settlement and rob the place, Johnny. I have no reason to trust anything you say.”

  His growing irritation was evident in his voice: “I’ve had my bad ways, Katie, but I ain’t the sort that would just ride off and leave you to perish out here. Oh no, ma’am. That ain’t Johnny Montana’s way.” He strutted back and forth beyond the fire as best as he could strut with the manacles on.

  “I don’t believe a word you say, Johnny.”

  “Well then, maybe you’ll believe this. How long is it you think you can stand guard over that kid? How long before you have to close them pretty eyes of yours and go to sleep? What’d you think will happen then?”

  She knew he was right. She was already bone-tired. She and the Ranger would be at Johnny Montana’s mercy if he got his hand on the pistol. There would be nothing to stop him from having his way.

  He could see the wavering doubt in her eyes.

  “You toss me the key, Katie, and let me ride off out of here on the black and send you help. It’s the only way you or him stand a chance. You do that and we’ll all get what we want out of this thing. I’ll be free, and you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

  As much as she dreaded the thought of being stranded, she knew that she could not hold out until the Ranger regained consciousness. The wound had been a terrible one and he had lost a lot of blood. She could not risk falling asleep and letting Johnny get to the pistol.

  “Well, what’s it going to be, woman?”

  She reached into the lawman’s pockets and found the key to the manacles. She flung them the distance between her and Johnny.

  “You unlock yourself,” she said. “But, I swear to you, if you make any move this way, I’ll pull the trigger. I wouldn’t have to be much of a shot to hit you at this distance.”

  His grin revealed a row of even white teeth.

  “You don’t have to worry about that none, darling. All ol’ Johnny wants is his freedom.” He had the shackles off in seconds.